Lovers of history can purchase a home on the spot where England's King John is believed to have signed the Magna Carta in 1215. Magna Carta House in Runnymede, just listed for $6 million, was built in 1834 by the high sheriff of Buckinghamshire to commemorate the sealing of the Magna Carta. The exact location of the document's signing is unknown, but a private island on the River Thames, on which the estate sits, "is considered a strong contender," per the Evening Standard. Appropriately dubbed Magna Carta Island, it was owned by one of 25 barons who rebelled against the king and his fiscal policies.
The signing of the Magna Carta, "a charter of freedoms that limited the monarchy's power over the nobility," only delayed civil war, but it sowed the seeds for Britain's democracy, per the Standard. At the time, Runnymede was nothing but a meadow, per the BBC. It now hosts a six-bedroom, two-bath home measuring about 4,700 square feet. It includes Welsh slate roofing, arched leaded windows, reclaimed Jacobean paneling, and a banquet-style dining hall that can accommodate 20 guests, per the Robb Report. Most likely to appeal to history lovers, however, is a specially commissioned "charter room" that holds the stone slab on which King John is thought to have sealed the Magna Carta.
The stone slab fitted into an octagonal wooden table is included with the sale, as is a detached cottage, some 1,300 feet of riverbank frontage, a private boat mooring, four acres of gardens, and a tree planted by the late Queen Elizabeth II in 1974, per the Robb Report. Connected to the mainland via a small road bridge, it's the "perfect, secluded residential estate," says Soren Ravaux with listing agency Waterview, who suggests the home could be turned into a boutique hotel. "Its place in history, at the heart of the world-famous Runnymede memorial landscape, a celebration of democracy and liberty, is bound to attract global interest." (More Magna Carta stories.)
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